Video Vikings: VHS is still the only way to open a vault of horror

24 April 2015 - 02:03 By Helen O'Hara, ©The Daily Telegraph

Nine years after the last major Hollywood release on the VHS cassette format - David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence in 2006 - a movement to protect and preserve the obsolete format has begun. Seven years after the last standalone video cassette recorders rolled off the production line, there is a growing realisation that the wholesale move from VHS to DVD left behind not only a wealth of films that were never transferred but an entire culture and time period. It was VHS, after all, that first democratised film viewing and made it widely accessible.By some estimates as many as half of the films available on VHS have not been released on DVD, and a great deal of cover art - some hand-drawn, some lurid, but all emblematic of an era - risks being lost forever.While VHS collecting is still a largely underground culture, rare and sought-after titles - most of them banned as video nasties - can cost thousands of rands.Among the films on most collectors' holy grail lists are the John Carradine-hosted shockumentary Journey Into the Beyond, nursing school horror The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio, Nazi monster movie Flesh Eaters, haunted house horror Satan War and the 1975 vampire drama Lemora, Lady Dracula. Find one of those in good condition and you can pretty much name your price.So will VHS become the new vinyl, a cool symbol of your great taste in films?Probably not. VHS was not the best-quality format even in its heyday - Betamax was better - and it pales into comparison with DVD, Blu-ray and hi-definition streaming services."I don't think the VHS revival will ever take on the same numbers as vinyl," says Josh Johnson, director of Rewind This!, a documentary about VHS collection and preservation. "A lot of audiophiles prefer the sound of vinyl but even people who are enthusiastic about collecting VHS tapes don't view the format as inherently superior. A majority are seeking a nostalgic re-creation of the way they initially experienced this material." ..

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